ScreenWize

Whatever the opposite of edgy is, Baby Mama is it. Safe, sanitised, middle of the road, clean and wholesome, it tells the story of a good corporate woman Kate (Tina Fey) who works for a heath-food company and who lives in a beautifully clean apartment in a chic part of New York. Kate is smart, pretty and successful. She only has one problem: the shape of her uterus (OK, so the uterus bit might possibly be classified as edgy – but that’s about as out there as the film gets). Kate’s problem means that the chances of her conceiving a child– even if she did have a partner - are so low she must resort to surrogacy. She’s introduced to Angie (Amy Poehler) through an exclusive and very expensive surrogacy agency run by Chaffee Bicknell (Sigourney Weaver). Despite the exclusivity and vast expense, Angie is distinctly trashy (in a wholesome and un-edgy kind of way) and lives with her loser boyfriend Carl (Dax Shepard). After Angie is impregnated with Kate’s fertilized eggs, she falls out with Carl and moves in with Kate. The film then becomes an Odd Couple story, two women from different sides of town forced to live together and experience the trials and tribulations of pregnancy.

It’s important to know that this is a film from Broadway Video, the company that produces the comedy show Saturday Night Live (SNL) and which is responsible for a number of patchy and mostly made for television and DVD feature films including Mean Girls and Hot Rod. Many of the Baby Mama cast are regulars on SNL, along with writer/director Michael McCullers in this his debut as director.

It’s a formulaic television-style film with a good heart. When the steam runs out of the surrogacy story and all the birthing clinic gags have been wrung dry, it resorts to the safer territory of good old romance, Kate’s love interest appearing in the form of juice bar owner Rob (Greg Kinnear). Steve Martin helps to liven things up as Kate’s new-age boss and Romany Malco puts in an excellent appearance as Kate’s concierge Oscar. Fey and Poehler bounce off each other nicely in places, but it’s the quality of the supporting cast that provides some shred of freshness to the film, which is otherwise amiably contrived and predictable.

SW

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Filed Under: Reviews by Simon